356 CENTURY OF ENGLISH FOX-HUNTING 



statistics, never appear to consider. The first I will 

 call " the influence of surroundings upon human 

 beings, especially during their youth " ; the second I 

 will call "acclimatisation." Yet it is on these two 

 problems that the choice of a livelihood depends. 

 There may be exceptions, but as a rule the boy who 

 has been educated in the village school becomes an 

 entirely different man, both mentally and physically, 

 to the boy who has been educated in a town board- 

 ing school. The country lad may not be as sharp as 

 his town cousin, though he be equally intelligent, 

 and physically stronger. The London arab and the 

 Paris gamin have had their wits sharpened by street 

 life. Few of them, I am sorry to think, know any- 

 thing of the comforts of home life. The small 

 amount of attention paid to them by their parents is 

 visible in their ragged clothes and dirty faces, often 

 pinched with poverty. The country lad has clean 

 clothes, however shabby they may be, and a healthy 

 face, denoting the care of his parents. The best 

 that we can say about the street arab is that he is a 

 merry little rogue, though police-court statistics show 

 that he is not always an honest one. Would the 

 country lad be happy in his society? 



The regulation of wages must depend upon supply 

 and demand. So far as I have been able to gather, 

 there is a strong demand for skilled agricultural 

 labour, though in the present days of scientific farm- 

 ing there is not much demand for Hodge. If my 

 information is correct, then Hodge's children should 



